“Joy…Despite It All” by Rev. Zenshin Florence Caplow

In this bleakest of winters, when there is so much to fear and grieve, can there be joy as well?  And what does “joy” mean, anyway, especially now? The Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield wrote, “Joy is our birthright…To be joyful does not mean ignoring the great measure of suffering in the world, nor avoiding responsibility for alleviating as much suffering as we can…joy enables us to be a part of the solution to suffering.” Music provided by Michael Schoepe and Paul Dankers.

I’m not going to mince words here. This has been a hella bad week for this country, for 2 million federal workers, for immigrants, for LGBTQ people, for the world, and for every caring person who is paying attention. And two terrible plane crashes. And we all know this is just the beginning.
On Tuesday I was teaching an online class on Practices for Frightening Times, the fourth of five weekly sessions. Every week I ask people how they are doing. Here’s some of what people wrote in the zoom chat this week. Nod when you hear something that resonates with your own state of mind.
Scared; Quietly freaked out! And worried for others!; overwhelmed, confused, drained; On thhe verge of panic, heartbroken; Struggling; woke & PISSED; Had 3 panic moments in the last 24 hours, did my best to research and then step away; sad; Trying to stay steady; deer in the headlights feeling. sooo glad that we’ve been meeting together in these frightening times…
What do we do. What DO we do? Comfort eating is only going to take us so far. Ditto with heavy drinking. Acting like ostriches and putting our heads in the sand doesn’t seem so helpful. Falling into crippling depression won’t help anyone, especially ourselves. Ditto with angry cynicism or complete overwhelm.
Today I want to suggest a radical antidote. Joy.
Joy?? It almost seems cruel to use this word this week. But here me out.
Two days ago Ellen Stapenhorst reminded me of a song I have long loved, sung by the powerful multi-racial Resistance Revival choir, and written by black gospel singer Shirley Caeser 50 years ago. One of the mottos of the Resistance Revival Choir is from the poet Toi Derricotte “joys is an act of resistance”
Here are the words to the song, This Joy:.
This joy that I have
The world didn’t give it to me (oh, oh, oh)
Ooh I said, the world didn’t give it
The world can’t take it away
Insert: strength, love, pride, peace

When I was an intern in the UU church in Port Townsend, Washington,, I taught a year-long course called Awakening Joy, based on a book of the same name by my first Buddhist teacher, James Baraz. The first thing I was asked in the class was “What is the difference between happiness and joy?” I would say that happiness seems to depend more on outer circumstances. Do I have enough money? Do I have a job? A partner? Do I have a decent president? Am I safe?
Those are all really good things, very important things, but you’ve probably noticed that they are not terribly reliable.
Happiness is what we are sold in endless advertisements, like those ones of the beautiful young couples walking hand in hand on a white sand beach. “Yes,” we think, “If I had that I would be happy.”
Instead my joints ache inexplicably and the people around me are stressed and grumpy and we have a terrifying new political situation and I haven’t seen a white sand beach in I don’t know how long. That’s what you are supposed to think, so that you will immediately walk over to your computer and book a vacation to Barbados.
Joy is something deeper than inner or outer circumstances, and joy cannot be bought or sold, although you can lose sight of it. Or, as Jack Kornfield wrote, joy is our birthright, it is innate to our consciousness.
Sometimes for me joy wells up when I look up at the stars on a cold night, or when I see a huge orange full moon like some alien planet paying us a visit. The joy I felt when I first encountered Colorado snow. The quiet joy of a fire in the woodstove, or a real conversation with a friend.
Earlier in my life I tended toward melancholy and big questions. Why is the world so awful, was one of my questions. I read a mythical story about the Buddha, who was asked more or less this same question by one of his monks. He said, let me show you the world I see, and he put his big toe on the ground, and suddenly everyone there saw a world of fantastic beauty, flowers and jeweled trees. Then he picked up his big toe and everything went back to “usual” again.
I used to puzzle about that story. Did that mean that one view was more true than the other, or were both views true, or neither?
Years later I spent two months on a silent retreat at Spirit Rock meditation Center in California. I went with very few expectations. I just wanted to slow down and hear the birds sing. And in the course of that time, I fell into the innate joy that Jack Kornfield wrote about.
The beauty of the world, just as it is, was everywhere around me. I didn’t choose joy, or plan joy, or make joy. It found me, when I got out of the way. I kept thinking about the story of the Buddha and his big toe.
There is a kind of Zen question that I’ve been contemplating for a long time. How is it that any moment in the world contains so many different things happening? At this very moment, as I speak these words, thousands of people are dying, thousands of other people are being born to joyful parents, hundreds of thousands of people are in the grip of intolerable suffering. How could a moment of joy for me be the same moment when someone else is being killed, or tormented?
For a long time I wondered whether I had a right to feel joy, with that much suffering happening at the same time. Now I feel that I have an obligation, or a responsibility, to add my notes to the great chord of a single moment, whatever the note may be, joy or sorrow.
Someone posted these words on Facebook, which is another way of saying it: The world is heartbreaking every day and the world is beautiful every day and we have to pay attention to both.”
And then there are these words, something I heard on a trail from a friend, after the 2016 election. We had run into each other and were commiserating about the dread and sadness all around us. He said that his father had taught him, “Never let a politician determine your happiness!” Good advice.
When I was fifteen, I learned about the anarchist Emma Goldman. Perhaps you’ve heard of her, and a quote often attributed to her, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.”
Emma Goldman was a renowned feminist and revolutionary, born in Lithuania who moved to the United States in 1885. She was one of the most outspoken and well-known of American radicals, lecturing and writing on anarchism, women’s rights and other political topics.
She may not have literally spoke those famous words. But in her autobiography she describes how she was once admonished for dancing at a party in New York and was told “that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway.”
Goldman responded furiously: “I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from conventions and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. If it meant that, I did not want it.”
Much like Emma Goldman’s response, at this time when gay and transgender people are in so much danger, once again, I think of the origin of the Pride parades we take for granted now.
Started in 1970 by activists commemorating the Stonewall riots the year before, over the years Pride parades have become joyful and playful celebrations. If you have ever danced down the street in the middle of a Pride march, you know what I’m talking about.
But as much fun as a Pride parade is these days, it is also very serious, it is joy as resistance, as survival, as a defiant affirmation, “we are here, and we will not be silent and invisible any more”
Rev Michelle Walsh is one of our great UU minister activists. She wrote:
If you are a caring, sensitive, and compassionate person, it is natural to be overwhelmed right now by what is happening in our shared world, and it also is natural to respond to the inexorable tug of the toxic anxiety swirl and to become anxious in response in turn.
You cannot do everything and you never could, and the experience of so much more now being out of your control than ever before is real. This continues to be a time of deepening in spiritual practices, particularly communal practices that remind us we are not alone and we were never alone and we are not meant to be alone in facing such depths and uncertainty.
Through reaching for each other, we find our calm in the midst of the storm – and from that place, we can continue to notice the joy, humor, beauty, love, and delight that is always available as a source of renewal, even in the simplicity of our breath and the fact that we are still here despite it all.
So I invite you, find Joy. Do not feel guilty if joy alights on your heart like the first spring butterfly, even if it only rests there a moment. Know what people who have been struggling for centuries know in their bones: joy is an act of resistance. Joy is an inside job, and it is your birthright, even and especially when things are falling apart. Believe me, it will give you strength for the journey
In a moment Micha is going to lead us in another one of my favorite inspiring songs, this one by Maggie Wheeler. How shall we come together? We shall come together singing.